With the Yankee 25-man roster more or less figured out, I thought I would take a look at who the potential minor league fill-ins at each position are likely to be if injury or ineffectiveness strike Yankee regulars or bench players.
1b: Should anything happen to Mark Teixeira, Eric Chavez (assuming he makes the 25-man roster) will likely be the person to take Teixeira’s place. There are no other first basemen on the 40-man roster at present, but I imagine Jorge Vazquez, who is having a monster spring (.464/.483/.893 with 3 homers and 3 doubles) will likely be the first callup. After Vazquez, the next likely candidate is Brandon Laird, who was just 1 for 19 in the spring. Both Vazquez and Laird will probably be in AAA, with Vazquez alternating between 1b and DH and Laird playing a mix of OF, 3rd, and 1st.
2b: If something were to happen to Robinson Cano, Eduardo Nunez (assuming he beats out Ramiro Pena as the utilityman) would likely take Cano’s place. If this happens, or if Nunez gets hurt, the next callup could either be Ramiro Pena or Kevin Russo. I would probably choose Russo because he has more offensive capability (which admittedly, is not saying much), though Pena is a better defender. David Adams could play his way into the mix if he gets off to a strong start and looks fully recovered from his injury.
SS: The unsavory duo of Nunez and Pena are likely to be the first replacements should anything happen to the Captain. Beyond those two, the next possible replacement is Reegie Corona, whose .660 OPS at Scranton last season did not exactly set the world on fire. Seriously, don’t get injured Derek. Where have you gone, Carmen Angelini?
3b: Eric Chavez will be the primary backup at 3rd as well, but should anything happen to A-Rod or Chavez, Brandon Laird is likely the best alternative. He’s not great defensively at the position, but from what I’ve seen in Spring Training he should be able to hold his own. Also, he has enough pop in his bat that he could be able to contribute a little on the offensive end. After Laird, the next guys to look at would be Russo or Corona.
C: With Joe Girardi adamant that Jorge Posada is a fulltime DH in 2011, he will not be in the mix to replace an injured Martin or Montero (if he makes the squad). With Francisco Cervelli out for a little while longer, the Yankees might consider bringing in a veteran retread like Gustavo Molina (or somebody who gets cut from another team) rather than pushing Austin Romine to the bigs. In terms of minor league catching depth, Austin Romine is probably the best bet, and there aren’t many other legitimate options.
OF: Since the Yankees are fortunate enough to have two legitimate centerfielders playing in their outfield, an injury to Curtis Granderson would likely cause the Yankees to move Brett Gardner to center and play Andruw Jones in left. The Yankees have some decent outfield options who are likely to be in AAA, including Justin Maxwell, Greg Golson, and Brandon Laird. Golson is likely the best defender of the trio, while Laird has the best bat, and Maxwell brings a little of both to the table. I’m not sure if the Yankees would trust Laird in the outfield just yet, so I imagine Golson or Maxwell would be next in line.
SP: The starting pitcher depth depends somewhat on who wins the battle for the 4th and 5th spot in the rotation, and how healthy Sergio Mitre is. The odd man out among Mitre, Colon, and Nova could find himself in AAA (with one winning the 5th starter spot and one serving as long reliever), and would likely be the first person called up in the event of an injury in the rotation. David Phelps would likely be the next option, because he has more AAA experience than Adam Warren, Andrew Brackman, or Hector Noesi. Manny Banuelos, despite all the hoopla this spring, is likely behind these guys on the depth chart because of experience and innings limits. Overall, the Yankees have some good starting pitcher depth, which is important given that a team can usually expect to use at least 7-8 starters in a season.
RP: The Yankees will have some intriguing choices if a member of the bullpen were to go down. Luis Ayala and Mark Prior have looked the best so far, albeit in limited samples. Romulo Sanchez has not pitched exceptionally well this spring, but is reporting drawing interest from scouts around the league. Sanchez is out of options, so if he doesn’t break camp with the big club the Yankees could lose him to another team. For lefty relievers, the only other option is Andrew Sisco, who has walked 4 in 3 1/3 hitless innings thus far.
So what can we see from the Yankees’ depth chart? Overall, they have pretty good starting pitching, catching, and outfield depth, but the possible replacements in the infield are pretty scary. Of course, no team can have top prospects waiting in the wings at every position, and it would be impossible to come anywhere close to replacing the production of Cano, Jeter, Teixeira or Rodriguez. Here’s hoping that all these guys are able to stay healthy, and we’ll never have to see Pena or Nunez taking any meaningful at bats.
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15 Responses to Who’s Next
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TIQ IQ
LOL So I was reading this and for a solid 5 seconds thought you said “a veteran retard like Gustavo Molina”, all I could think was well that’s not very nice hahaha. That really made me laugh,reading comprehension can really help clear the the dark haha.
t.o. chris are u a closet red sox fan? u lost me when u said lester was better than cc. you also continue to wax poetic about the sox on this blog. im goin to repeat this again slowly for you. the yanks roster is loaded. they have the best offense in mlb returning, the #1 bullpen in baseball on paper and the best bench theyve had going into a season in a while. cc, hughes, and burnett are right there with lester, buchholtz and beckett. the sox advantage lies in lackey and that is it. lackey did not have a good season last year, he had a good final 2 months which lowered his era from near 5.00 to 4.40. there overated in the fact that boston is seen as a huge favorite in the division and they are not.
Are you serious right now? This isn’t even a topic concerning the Sox and this isn’t a post concerning the Sox.
You obviously can’t have a conversation with someone without treating them like dirt so as I said earlier, Thanks but no thanks.
BTW good luck thinking ERA is representative of someones year.
guy this is in responce to alot of your previous posts on this blog. my point being that while the sox are a slight favorite they aren’t the overwhelming favorite to win the east. and i could care less about era normally, i was just making a point about lackey being really bad for the first few months and only improving the last 2. aslo im prob one of the more realistic fans in mlb, i love the sport, i play the sport and i follow all teams and players.
It’s actually only been this post and the other one in which you insulted me and continued to address me as “guy”, I’m trying to be as nice to you as I can and let you know I do not want to be involved in an argument like this, please either respect my wishes or talk in a more respectful manner.
im not disrepecting you at all i call everybody guy on the blogs unless there a woman. im just disagreeing with your opinion on the 2 teams. im not a typical yankee fan where everybody on the yanks is great and everybody else sucks. or worse off are fans out there that are so damn negative about there teams. in fact i wish i could get in touch with half these writers like olney, law, heyman etc… who are just annoying and ignorant.
“t.o. chris are u a closet red sox fan?”
“lester is better than cc? stop watching baseball guy u lost me.”
“t.o chris your clearly a red sox fan trolling yankee sites. you kiss alot of red sox ass.”
I find all of these very disrespectful and if that is how you show respect I don’t want any part of your disrespect.
When you at come at me in a hostile manner before I ever even read a single thing you have written I tend not to want to have a discussion with you, it only leads to me having a headache and I don’t want that.
Like I said if you can talk to me without the insults like above or calling me “guy” which I have no indicated to you I don’t like I will continue the discussion and get into numbers on Lackey, Lester and anyone else you want to discuss.
I am a die hard Yankee fan and I live and die with this team… NEVER question that again or I will not even consider your posts as existing.
Nova is the only one of the starter/long relievers who could be sent to the minors. I highly doubt Garcia & Colon wouldn’t opt out of their contracts and I don’t think Mitre has options left. Whoever is the long reliever though is likely also the spot starter. In that case, if one of the starters is dl’ed, the injury replacement could be a reliever to fill the long man spot and not a starter. If Nova is sent down, he could be the 6th man or the 7th starter. Otherwise, the 7th man has to be one of the young guys in the minors. It won’t be David Phelps though because he isn’t even on the 40 man roster. Hector Noesi and Brackman are both likely ahead of him as they are both on the 40 man.
I also doubt that Kevin Russo or Reegie Corona are right behind Laird in the 3B pecking order. I think they’d play Nunez at 3B before either of those guys and bring up Pena to be the new util guy. Vasquez has also played 3B in the minors if they really wanted an offensive option although I don’t know they’d trust him defensively and he’s not on the 40 man anyway.
people want to call the lineups even ok i can accept that. people want to say the bullpens are close thats ok but to talk about a red sox rotation that was worse than the yankees last year with burnett and vazquez giving the yankees nothing is funny.the sox rotation was bad last year and they did nothing to improve the worst part of there team a year ago. so to assume beckett will bounce back, and diasuke wont suck and lackey will return to form are as big a question as will aj bouce back, will nova emerge as a quality starter and will freddy or colon pitch well and stay healthy.
Now onto Lackey…
Lackey had an extremely unlucky season coupled with the fact that his fastball was way down in velocity over the early part of the year, in fact he didn’t end up getting to his 91 MPH average until well after the all-star break, he has come into camp after shedding 20 pounds and he should have a better fastball to start the year than he did last season.
As you stated Lackey did have an ERA of 4.40 but this isn’t the whole story as ERA doesn’t help indicate if a pitcher was being plagued by luck or some other variable.
6.53 K/9, 3.01 BB/9, .75 HR/9, 4.40 ERA, 3.85 FIP, 4.32 xFIP, 4.0 WAR
If you really want to call his 4.0 WAR in a down year overrated go ahead but for comparison AJ Burnett has posted a WAR of 4.0+ 3 times only in his entire career, in fact he posted a 1.3 WAR last year and only had a 3.4 WAR in 2009. Before that you have to go back to 2008 (5.5) with the Blue Jays and 2005 (5.1) with the Marlins, so if anything between the 2 Lackey is much more likely to bounce back than Burnett is to have the season Lackey had last year.
As far as their pitching staff sucking last year goes the big 5 of their rotation last year (Lester, Beckett, Dice K, Clay and Lackey) had a team rotation WAR of 16.9 while the Yankees big 6 (Sabathia, Hughes, Burnett, Nova, Pettitte and Vazquez) posted a team rotation WAR of 11.4, so they were worth 5 more wins than our rotation last season was.
when anybody comes on a blog like this a makes a blanket statement like lester is better than cc thats ridiculous. in fact outside of the angels top 3 i think cc, aj and hughes will be close to one of the better top 3′s in the al.
If we can keep it civil I will defend my argument.
Jon Lester
2008-(R*) 210 IP, 6.5 K/9, 2.82 BB/9, .60 HR/9, 3.21 ERA, 3.64 FIP, 4.08 xFIP, 5.1 WAR
2009- 203 IP, 9.96 K/9, 2.83 BB/9, .89 HR/9, 3.41 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 3.13 xFIP, 6.3 WAR
2010- 208 IP, 9.74 K/9, 3.59 BB/9, .61 HR/9, 3.25 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 3.29 xFIP, 5.6 WAR
CC Sabathia
2009- 230 IP, 7.71 K/9, 2.62 BB/9, .70 HR/9, 3.37 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 3.82 xFIP, 6.3 WAR
2010- 237 IP, 7.41 K/9, 2.80 BB/9, .76 HR/9, 3.18 ERA, 3.54 FIP, 3.78 xFIP, 5.1 WAR
On top of 2008 being Lester’s rookie season (he threw 63 innings 2007) he was also recovering from Leukemia and hadn’t fully gathered all his gusto on fastball back yet at the time, I didn’t include CC’s 2008 because he spent half the year in the NL tearing it up and half the year in Cleveland getting torn up.
Over the last 2 seasons Sabathia has posted an 11.4 WAR while Lester in that same time period has posted a WAR of 11.6 while being 4 years to the month younger, with better pure stuff in the same AL East Sabathia has pitched in.
If you were going to give one or the other a contract and both were free agents Lester would be the one getting the first offers and for more money/years, he has posted numbers as good and often times better than Sabathia over the last 2 seasons and he is only entering his year 27 age season.
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chris we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. anybody can use all kinds of different numbers to make there point but for me more important than era or fip is wins, innings, and the eye test. both guys are excellent pitchers and there’s not much seperating them but there;s nobody i want anchoring my staff in the al other than cc sabathia. “outside of felix hernandez” ill take your word that you are in fact a yankees fan but your passionate arguments defending red sox players and such confuses me. maybe you feel your just being honest but normally you dont see yankee fans vehemently defending sox players over yanks unless its really obvious to do so.
Not for nothing stunna485 but the Yankees roster is NOT loaded in any way. I’m just bored writing this on a car trip so I have some time lol.
First of all I 100% agree with you that C.C. Is a lightyears ahead of Lester in terms of a legitimate ace on a staff. He’s in the prime of his career, has a cy young (and with a win in that game in Tampa vs. Price, should have won a second over Hernandez (don’t get me wrong I though Felix pitched out of his mind but he never has had to pitch in a pressure game because his team sucks so bad)) and a world series ring to show for it. Having said that I seem to remember Beckett having a very convincing season in ’07 as well and he could have easily swiped that Cy Young from C.C., but that’s neither here nor there. Bottom line is C.C., at this point in his career is a better pitcher than Lester in every faset of their respective games, but he’s also got more than twice the experience. However, if you look at Sabathia’s early career and compare it to what Lester is doing these few seasons, there is little comparison as to who is better in their youth (to be fair start with lesters 08 season being his first full and cc’s 01). Add in the fact that like C.C., Lester is very capable of handling the big game having won the deciding game in the 07 fall classic and the fact that he beat leukemia to do all this and you have an extraordinary resume for a guy as young as he is. Lester shows the potential to be every bit as good as Sabathia and perhaps even better moving forward. I still believe C.C. Is the better pitcher for now though.
Moving on from that point, the rest of the Yankees staff is more or less one big question mark, having only three guaranteed starters as of right now. At least the Red Sox know who’s going out there every fifth day. So to be fair let’s compare the starters down the line.
2nd starter: Aj Burnett vs. Josh Beckett
Here’s one that I call a dead wash. Tie! Reason being that both are coming off extraordinarily dissappointing ’10 campaigns and Burnett couldn’t even put it together in the post-season. Both men however have far too much talent and upside to be number 3 starters or to believe this trend will continue and given burnetts inconsistent nature, I think it makes sense for him to bounce back. As for Beckett, we are talking about one of the best post-season performers of our generation, so you can’t just write him off and when aj’s curve is working and his fastball is hitting 97-98, he’s virtually untouchable. Like I said.. Tie is fair.
3 starter: Hughes vs. Clay
Obvious, ain’t it? As much as I love Phil.. I’m willing to think 18 wins is about his ceiling, not to mention he’s yet to consistently post a sub-four era (not that I worry about eras to much but it is a bit troubling). So we are tied so far. No advantage.
4th starter: nova, ducherer or mitre vs. John Lackey
Even though I hate Lackey. He is a number 3 on any team and a number 2 on most and will probably serve as 3 for the sox. I’m just doing this based on who “I” think is better. Lackey is better overall than anybody the yanks have to offer right now although they will probably make a move but right now.. Advantage red sox
5th starter yankee scraps vs. Dice k
I think dice k is wildly over rated and always was but the advantage is in his favor over whoever our 5th starter is. You want to tell me this is a Yankee tie? That’s being generous in my opinion but I could accept that since dice k or lackey will probably suck this season. In my book the redsox starters are looking a lot more depthful (with Tim Wakefield ready to takeover on injury if needed), seasoned and just better overall. The offseason really fucked us. If cliff lee were here.. Believe me I’d be singing a much different tune.
Rotation advantage? Red sox
Ace advantage? Yanks
I won’t get to involved with the bullpens because, year to year its impossible to say who’s is better so I’ll just say that the yanks have to legitimate closets on their team as do the sox. But there is one x factor.. Mo. End of story.
Bullpen advantage? Yanks
Now that pitching is done let’s do something easy. Defense.
Catcher? Yanks. Russel Martin is. Very good catcher and a relatively easy pick over the sox’ saltilamacchia varitek combo.
1b and 2b: yanks for obvious reasons.
3rd: I’ll give this one to the sox with youk moving to third and a rod slowly but surely losing a little more umph on his throw and range at the hot corner.
Lf: sox. It’s Crawford, cmon
Cf: yanks. I’ll take grandy out there over Cameron or elsberry.
Rf: sox. I hate him but jd drew is a very good rf and they canthrow elsberry out there too. Sorry swish
Over all defense advantage? Yanks
Bench I’m willing to call about even so we’ll leave it at that.
Ok line up time:
Vs rhp
Elsbury vs. Jeter: no brained here. The captain can still spark the lineup
Crawford vs. Granderson: sox
Pedroia vs. Texiera: yanks. Despite a disappointing ba last year mark still whacked 30 dingers and 100 rbis. Better pure hitter in every way than pedroia.
Gonzales vs. Arod: I’ll call this for the yanks also. It’s arod and although he’s exiting his prime. He has still failed to not hit 30 hr and 100 RBIs for any year for a decade and a half almost. Career average and on base is higher and with Robbie cano behind him has a lot better protection not to mention where Adrian Gonzales tops in homers in the forties and only did it once. Alex tops in mid fifties and has done multiple times. The beat baseball player of our generation (roids or not).
Youkilis vs. Cano: I take cano on a contract year after a huge season. Hell be the highest paid second baseman in baseball after this season. Youk has more power and knocks in more runs but Robbie has the average and the glove. I think cano last year is the cano we should all be prepared to see for a longgggg time.
Ortiz vs posada: Ortiz is easy on a contract year and already used to the dh position. Posada will have a big year but it’ll take Him some time to get used to dh and perhaps to get over his pride. Sox here
Drew vs. Swish: I call this sox. Swish was big last year but I think he was over his head and jd has been more consistent but not great the past couple years but even in bad years he’s hitting 20 dingers and getting on base. Which is what swish does too. But I expect a big drop off.
Martinvs. Salt: I call it a wash right now but Martin has a wholeeee lot of upside.
Gardener vs. Scutaro: I think gardener is the lead off man of the future and Scutaro is just a defensive ss. I think for now though no advantage until Brett has that break out we are all waiting for.
Listen I love this team and I think the Lineups are even. I think our bullpen and defense are both much better and we have the best closer of all time here. The issue is and continues to be the starting pitching here which the sox have a clear advantage. Add on to that the excitement of a few key acquisitions and that makes for a veryyyy dangerous ball club. I think this year will be very close Stunna, but don’t blame me for picking the sox to win the division this year. Starting pitching owns this league and right now the sox have the edge.